Greg Copeland wrote:
Anyone care to speculate on what fuel prices will do to the plane market
over the next four or five months? As prices rise do you think this will
create good opportunity for buyers? That is to say, planes placed on the
market because they can't afford to pay for fuel?

The reality is that unless you are really skimping on the maintenance,
not planning for major expenses like engine overhaul, not hangaring,
etc., fuel is at most 30% of your expenditures - and that assumes you
own the plane outright. If you have a note, it's less. The people who
find themselves priced out because the fuel has gone up are thus the
ones who were skimping on all these other expenses and just can't
afford any increase.

So you're going to see a lot of planes that are pretty old and poorly
maintained selling for a lot less. Older gas-guzzling twins especially
- a lot of people bought those beacuse they were actually a lot cheaper
than singles (my friend bought a Baron because it was less money than
the Cherokee he really wanted, now he can't afford to fly it). Even at
a bargain price, those planes are no bargain. The people who are
really maintaining their planes can afford to pay more for gas -
they're simply not going to sell in this depressed market.

If you're looking at a well mainained and reasonably economical
airplane (something that doesn't burn much more than 15 gph) you're not
going to see any softening. The stuff that burns less than 10 gph will
probably get MORE expensive.

Michael